Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume II

by M. Y. Halidom

Our school was now well filled with pupils, who, one and all, grew most attached to my young friend—to both of us in fact—but I rather think that she was the favourite.

There was not a person in or out of the school that could say a word against Claribel Falkland; there was something so inoffensive, so modest, and, at the same time, winning about her; such consideration for others, such a looking out of herself, if I may so term it. Then she had the knack of teaching—a rare gift—and was as mild and patient as a lamb, thus endearing all hearts towards her.

One day when giving a lesson in geography to her class (this was about a year after the last apparition of the spectre) I, who was giving a lesson in arithmetic to some younger children in the opposite corner of the schoolroom, was suddenly startled by a scream of surprise from the girls of my friend's class.

"Look! look! oh, just look, Miss Sykes," they cried in terror, "look, there are two Miss Falklands!"

I raised my eyes at the cry, and saw to my dismay, my friend's old tormentor—the double—behind her, as usual, and imitating her action, my friend being at that moment in the act of pointing to a map. I walked across the room to my friend, hoping to drive away the spectre in so doing, but it remained some minutes longer before it entirely disappeared.

I caught the eye of my friend, who looked mournfully at me, and added in a low tone of voice, as I passed her, "Is it not provoking? Could anything be more annoying?"

I did not tell the schoolgirls that I myself saw the figure, and tried to laugh them out of a "silly fancy," as I called it, fearing that I might be called upon as a witness, should this report reach the ears of the school-mistress, and it might prejudice folks against my friend as a teacher, so I affected harshness, and said I begged I should hear no more of such stuff, and the affair dropped for the time; but now that the double had recommenced its visits, it came frequently, and always in class time, to my friend's great discomfiture.

Of course, there was no getting out of it now. The school-mistress was called, and saw the same thing; and I myself was obliged to see it with the rest. The school-mistress was very much bewildered, as well she might be. She declared she did not know what to make of it. She could hardly bring herself to think that it was a messenger of good, and Miss Falkland's character was so unimpeachable that she could still less believe that anything bad should be permitted to torment her. In fact, she did not know what to think, so she called for the rector of the parish, that he might speak with the apparition; and if it should prove an evil one, to exorcise it.

The rector came, but being disappointed in seeing the spectre, came a second, third, and fourth time, with the like success, till at length he went away in a huff, and begged they would trouble him no more.

One Sunday, however, as the rector was in the middle of his sermon, his eyes being fixed on our school, we noticed him suddenly turn pale and tremble. He was unable to go on with his sermon. I followed his eyes, and found, as I half expected, my friend and her double seated close together. The girls shrieked and started, and a commotion was being made in the church; so much so, that Claribel was obliged to get up and walk out, her double following close at her heels.